Matthew Rockloff – Australia’s leading gambling researcher

Matthew Rockloff is one of Australia’s most influential gambling researchers and the mind behind decades of evidence-based work that shapes how Australians understand pokies, sports betting, and responsible play. As head of the Experimental Gambling Research Laboratory (EGRL) at Central Queensland University, he brings a rare blend of psychology and economics expertise to every study he publishes. His work informs federal and state policy across the country, from advertising bans on wagering during television broadcasts to mandatory self-exclusion registers. At CrownPlay Casino, we rely on researchers like Professor Rockloff to keep our editorial content grounded in science rather than speculation.

Academic background and credentials

Professor Rockloff’s academic path is anything but conventional for a gambling scholar. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of California in 1989, then completed a Master of Science in applied microeconomics at Texas A&M University in 1994. His pivot to psychology came at Florida Atlantic University, where he earned a Ph.D. in social psychology in 1999. That interdisciplinary foundation – economics meeting human behaviour – is exactly what makes his gambling research so practical and widely cited.

Before entering academia full-time in Australia, Rockloff worked as a senior financial analyst at First American Bank, applying quantitative assessment skills to real-world banking operations. He then moved to the University of Nevada, Reno as a post-doctoral research fellow from 1999 to 2001, where he began studying gambling behaviours in Nevada’s unique regulatory environment. This early exposure to the American gambling landscape gave him a comparative lens he would later apply to Australian conditions, where per-capita losses consistently rank among the highest in the world.

The Experimental Gambling Research Laboratory

The EGRL at CQUniversity is Australia’s largest dedicated team of gambling-focused researchers, and Rockloff has led it since its founding. The lab’s mission is to support understanding of games of chance through experiment, simulation, and observation, and the team includes multiple research professors, post-doctoral fellows, and Ph.D. candidates. Their projects span everything from electronic gaming machine (EGM) design features to adolescent exposure to simulated gambling in video games. The lab also runs the Leisure and Wellbeing Study (LEWIS), a community research panel that feeds real participant data into ongoing studies.

Under Rockloff’s leadership, the EGRL has produced research that directly influenced Australian gambling regulation in 2026 and prior years. The lab’s findings contributed to banning wagering advertisements during general television viewing, implementing mandatory limit-setting tools for online betting, and developing the Australian National Self-Exclusion Register for pokies. Federal and state governments, including the Australian Department of Social Services, routinely commission the EGRL for prevalence studies and policy reports. The team’s 2023 study on skill-based gambling in Australia and their ongoing work on gambling harms measurement tools remain some of the most referenced papers in the field.

Key research areas in 2026

Professor Rockloff’s research interests are broad but consistently centred on understanding why people gamble and how that behaviour can lead to harm. His 2026 work continues to focus on several interconnected themes that reflect the evolving Australian gambling landscape. The Independent Gambling Research Conference, which Rockloff conceived and the EGRL convened in Melbourne in February 2026, featured 30 presentations covering the most pressing issues in the field. These themes offer a snapshot of where his attention is directed right now.

His primary research areas include:

• Psychological risk factors for problem gambling, including the roles of excitement, esteem, excess, and escape
• Gambling harm measurement and validation, including the 20-item Gambling Harms Scale (GHS-20) published in late 2025
• Structural characteristics of electronic gaming machines and how design features influence player behaviour
• Impact of sports betting advertising on young Australians
• Simulated gambling in video games and loot boxes as risk pathways for adolescent gambling involvement
• Effects of direct marketing opt-out on reducing betting and gambling harms
• Legacy gambling harms – what happens to wellbeing after a person stops gambling

The crocodile experiment and Ig Nobel Prize

No profile of Matthew Rockloff would be complete without mentioning the study that made him internationally famous. In 2010, together with colleague Nancy Greer, he designed an experiment at a crocodile farm near Rockhampton, Queensland, to test whether holding a live saltwater crocodile would affect participants’ willingness to take risks on poker machines. The idea came from his wife Susan, a native of Alice Springs, who suggested crocodiles as a natural source of excitement in Central Queensland. The study found that the arousal generated by handling the reptile did indeed change gambling behaviour, confirming the link between emotional excitement and risk-taking.

The research earned Rockloff and Greer the 2017 Ig Nobel Prize in economics, an award that honours studies which first make people laugh and then make them think. The ceremony at Harvard University saw them receive their prize from four actual Nobel laureates. Rockloff embraced the attention, noting that great science does not need to be stuffy or boring, and that the core of both humour and discovery is a pleasant surprise or incongruity. Beyond the headlines, the crocodile study reinforced a serious principle now embedded in his broader body of work: environmental and emotional context significantly shapes gambling decisions, and regulators should consider these factors when designing harm-minimisation strategies.

Awards and recognition

Throughout his career, Rockloff has accumulated an impressive list of honours that reflect both teaching excellence and research impact. His consistency across multiple years of lecturer awards is particularly notable, as it demonstrates engagement with students alongside prolific publishing output. Below is a summary of his most significant recognitions.

Leadership roles at CQUniversity

Rockloff’s influence at CQUniversity extends well beyond the EGRL directorship. Over the years, he has held a series of institutional leadership positions that have shaped research strategy across the university. He served as head of the Population Research Laboratory from 2009 to 2017, managing a team of over 40 staff members using advanced Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) systems for large-scale population surveys. He also held roles as node leader for the Queensland Centre for Social Science Innovation, deputy director of the Institute of Health and Social Science Research, and acting director of the Centre for Social Science Research.

These administrative roles gave him oversight of budgets, staff, and cross-disciplinary collaboration at a scale that few gambling researchers ever manage. During his time leading the Population Research Laboratory, external survey funding grew substantially – from A$142,000 in 2010 to A$211,000 in 2012. He also introduced a nomination scheme for internal research grants aimed at recognising researchers likely to make significant contributions. This track record of institutional entrepreneurship helps explain why the EGRL consistently attracts competitive grants from state governments and NGOs across Australia and internationally, including projects commissioned by authorities in Alberta, Canada.

Impact on Australian gambling policy

The practical reach of Rockloff’s work is perhaps its most important dimension for anyone reading CrownPlay Casino’s editorial content. His research has contributed evidence to some of the most significant gambling reforms in Australian history, and the policy pipeline remains active in 2026. The EGRL’s prevalence studies in Tasmania (2018), Victoria (2019), and New South Wales (2019) gave state governments the data they needed to justify tighter regulation. Their findings on sports betting advertising led directly to restrictions on wagering ads during general TV viewing hours and bans on certain punter inducements.

In 2026, the EGRL’s work continues to feed into debates around a proposed national gambling regulator, mandatory spend pre-commitment requirements for pokies, and further advertising restrictions. At the February 2026 Independent Gambling Research Conference in Melbourne, Rockloff emphasised the importance of research independence, ensuring that neither government nor industry influences the planning of academic events in this space. Australia remains the world’s highest per-capita gambling loss nation – A$1,527 lost per adult in 2022-23 – and Rockloff’s team is central to the effort to bring those numbers down while preserving informed player choice.

Why CrownPlay trusts his expertise

At CrownPlay Casino, we believe that responsible gambling content must be built on a foundation of peer-reviewed research rather than marketing claims. Professor Rockloff’s body of work – spanning over two decades, more than 6,900 citations, and direct influence on national policy – makes him one of the most credible voices in Australian gambling studies today. His interdisciplinary training in economics and psychology means he understands both the financial mechanics of gambling products and the behavioural patterns of the people who use them. When our editorial team references research on harm minimisation, EGM design, or gambling prevalence, his publications are among the first sources we consult.

His commitment to independent research, demonstrated most recently through the 2026 Independent Gambling Research Conference, aligns with our own editorial standards. We do not accept industry-funded talking points at face value, and neither does Rockloff. For Australian players navigating the A$25 billion annual gambling market, having access to content informed by researchers of this calibre is not a luxury – it is a necessity. We are proud to feature Professor Rockloff as a contributing expert whose insights help our readers make better-informed decisions about their gambling activity.